The present invention relates to air conditioners and, more particularly, to an arrangement for facilitating the installation of a filter in the indoor grille of a room air conditioner.
Room air conditioners typically have an indoor section and an outdoor section. The indoor section is responsible for cooling and dehumidifying the interior of a room while the outdoor section is responsible for exhausting heat into the outdoor environment. The indoor and outdoor sections each have a heat exchanger coil and a fan, and each has a return air opening and a discharge opening. A grille structure is normally installed over each section to prevent the entry of foreign objects, while allowing the free-flow of air to and from the sections as well as for aesthetic considerations.
It is common practice to have associated with the indoor grille structure a filter element, through which the indoor air passing to the indoor coil must pass. Such a filter is designed to remove substantially smaller contaminants from the air than the indoor grille. Quite often the indoor grille must be removed from the air conditioner in order to gain access to the filter. Other air conditioners are known which have a rectangularly shaped reusable filter, which slides into a slot oriented above the grille such that the filter may be installed or withdrawn from a location behind the grille and in front of the evaporator coil by vertically displacing the filter within the slot.
It is also known to provide a filter assembly, which is provided with moveable guides which receive the filter and prevent the filter assembly from contacting and possibly damaging the fragile heat exchange fins of the evaporator coil as the filter is installed and removed from its mounting in an indoor grille.
It is deemed desirable to have a structure which is formed integrally with the indoor grille which facilitates easy insertion and removal of the indoor grille and which provides positioning and support of the filter assembly in a spaced relationship with the evaporator coil.